With lots of help from David Nather, Jason Millman, Kate Nocera, Lester Feder, Joanne Kenen, Matt DoBias and Jen Haberkorn

THE RACE GOES ON – Super Tuesday brought a split decision, with Mitt Romney taking at least five of the 10 states in play. Rick Santorum won at least three, and Newt Gingrich handily won his home state of Georgia. Romney barely, just barely, won Ohio, The Associated Press reported early Wednesday. Santorum notched a key win in Tennessee — reinforcing concerns about Romney’s popularity in the South. The incredibly close call in Ohio had pundits aflutter about Romney troubles in the heartland. The POLITICO story: http://politi.co/Am6XpT

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SANTORUM LIFTS WEIGHTS, THUMPS ROMNEY ON HEALTH CARE – Santorum took the stage in a high school gym in Steubenville, Ohio, and told the crowd he pumped some iron in the weight room before the speech. Santorum doubled down on health care as his central issue, saying “Obamacare” was “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” drawing him into the race. He then teed up Romney and delivered a super-hyphenated thumping: “It’s one thing to defend a mandated, top-down, government-run health care program that you imposed on the people of your state; it’s another thing to recommend and encourage the president of the United States to impose the same thing on the American people; and it’s another thing yet to go out and tell the American public you didn’t do it,” Santorum said. “We need a person running against President Obama who is right on the issues and truthful with the American public.”

ROMNEY STICKS TO THE SCRIPT — He spoke right after Santorum but didn’t engage, congratulating his opponents: “Thanks you guys, nice races.” On policy, he focused on his economic message, using the same lines as always, promising to “cut, cap and balance the budget” and create jobs. On health care, he stuck to the very basics: “[The president] passed Obamacare; I will repeal Obamacare.”

Happy hump day and welcome to PULSE. Super Tuesday slipped into a sleepy Wednesday morning, as the primary results rolled in. But PULSE could not avert its eyes!

“Whoa-oh-whoa-oh-whoa-oh-woah-oh-whoa-Ohio! PULSE!”

TODAY IN POLITICO PRO:

--AND THE RACE GOES ON AND ON -- With those two primary night speeches, Santorum reminded everyone Tuesday night that he’ll go after the ACA with a passion that Romney can never match. And that may well be one of the reasons Romney hasn’t been able to close out the race for the GOP nomination yet. The POLITICO Pro story: http://politico.pro/zvdULw.

-- GOP EYES OPENINGS TO RIP HEALTH LAW – Late Tuesday afternoon, at least a dozen of Senate Republicans met privately to discuss how to best frame their attacks on President Obama's health care law ahead of its second anniversary and the Supreme Court oral arguments. The POLITICO Pro story: http://politico.pro/xA5VGI

-- REHBERG HAMMERS SEBELIUS – House Labor, HHS and Education subcommittee Chairman Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) kicked off a hearing with Secretary Kathleen Sebelius by raising what he called “a number of financial management issues,” including 176 contracts — with a total value of $1.4 billion — that violated a law regulating spending by federal agencies. The Pro story: http://politico.pro/yZNFRE

SANTORUM WENT THERE — He couldn’t resist a reference to the contraception debate: “The government is using its heavy hand to force you to buy insurance, to force you to take policies you don’t want and, of course, to force you to take coverages that violate your faith convictions.”

--ROMNEY STILL REFUSES TO — After Romney voted for himself in Massachusetts, reporters asked him about the Rush Limbaugh-Sandra Fluke controversy, and Romney said, “My campaign is about jobs and the economy and scaling back the size of government, and I’m not going to weigh in on that particular controversy,” The Boston Globe reports: http://bo.st/yWSeef.

--MEANWHILE, LIMBAUGH HAS LOST 29 ADVERTISERS SO FAR, UPROAR CONTINUES — POLITICO’S MJ Lee has the story. You know you can’t resist: http://politi.co/zYdgyR.

AND A LONGTIME ADVOCATE FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE GOES DOWN — Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) lost his primary contest Tuesday to Rep. Marcy Kaptur in a newly redrawn district.

WHAT'S THE HOLDUP? House Republican leaders are slowing down plans to pass legislation taking aim at the Obama administration's contraceptive coverage requirement, according to sources close to leadership. The Senate's defeat of similar legislation last week means a House-passed version won't become law. And although this House has passed several other reproductive health bills it knew would never make it through the Senate, some Republicans have lost their appetite for such symbolic votes as the November election comes closer. Democrats have seized on the contraceptive fight as a winning issue for them, and the fiery debate in the Senate that came with Sen. Roy Blunt's amendment to overturn the mandate may have given the House pause. A source close to top House Republicans said that they've concluded they need to "win the debate and then win the policy." The POLITICO Pro story: http://politico.pro/zDCaUT.

REHBERG HAMMERS SEBELIUS — House Republicans attacked HHS for a series of financial management problems Tuesday, suggesting it can’t be trusted with greater responsibilities under health care reform. House Labor, HHS and Education subcommittee Chairman Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) kicked off a hearing with Secretary Kathleen Sebelius by raising what he called “a number of financial management issues,” including 176 contracts — with a total value of $1.4 billion — that violated a law regulating spending by federal agencies. The Pro story: http://politico.pro/yZNFRE.

HAPPENING TODAY: SEBELIUS GOES TO SENATE APPROPS-- HHS Secretary Sebelius will testify at 10 a.m. at the Senate Appropriations Labor, HHS and Education subcommittee. A likely topic? Those cuts to the Prevention Fund. When asked if subcommittee Chairman Tom Harkin has prevention fund questions for Sebelius, he told POLITICO: "Ohh, yes. As you know, I feel strongly about that. ... We're going to quiz her about the president's budget, that's for sure."

EXCHANGE? WHAT EXCHANGE? Louisiana's opposition to the ACA is no secret — Gov. Bobby Jindal was one of the first to reject a state-run health insurance exchange. And it turns out the state hasn't even talked with HHS about a federally run exchange, state health secretary Bruce Greenstein said yesterday. Greenstein, a former health IT executive, doesn't expect a federally run exchange to land in his state in time for 2014. "It's impossible to meet the timelines that are laid out in the law just from a pure systems build," he told the AHIP conference in Washington yesterday. CCIIO Director Steve Larsen, who spoke to the same conference earlier in the day, had a much different take on things. “I can tell you there’s a ton of work going on and we will be ready." The POLITICO Pro story: http://politico.pro/wD5ZGa.

--NOT TOTALLY IGNORING ACA Greenstein said Louisiana checked out the December essential health benefits bulletin, but the state is kinda scratching its head over it. "It kinda said nothing," Greenstein said. "It's not worth anything, there's no authority behind the bulletin." The state has determined if it decides to choose its own EHB benchmark plan, the decision would come from the governor, he said.

IDAHO EXCHANGE HOPES NO MORE — Leaders of the Idaho Legislature said Tuesday that hopes for a bill to create an Idaho-run health insurance exchange are all but dead for this session, setting the stage for Idaho to get a federally run exchange in 2014, the Idaho Statesman reports. A legislative task force had recommended a framework for an unusual exchange in which the government would play no role in picking which health plans could participate. But the bill to authorize it has run out of steam, amid hostility to anything that reminds anyone of the health reform law, whatsoever. "We've never been able to get critical mass [of legislative votes] to introduce a bill," Republican House Speaker Lawerence Denney told reporters Tuesday. The Statesman’s story: http://bit.ly/yJLMdg.

IPAB REPEAL ON THE MOVE — After months of inching along, IPAB legislation is zipping through the House. The Energy and Commerce Committee passed it on a bipartisan voice vote Tuesday, Ways and Means aims to do so Thursday and the full House in about two weeks. The path's less clear in the Senate, where IPAB has more support. But Texas Sen. John Cornyn said that once the House vote is over, he'd push for the Senate to take up the bill to repeal Medicare's Independent Payment Advisory Board. Cornyn, who is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, offered no specific timetable or legislative vehicle but said, "My hope is that we'll be able to get it brought up in the Senate."

NAIC DECLINES TO WEIGH IN ON CONTRACEPTION QUESTION — The planned vote PULSE reported yesterday? Well, it never happened. Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner John Doak motioned to bring his “religious liberty” resolution at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners Tuesday afternoon, needing the support of just one colleague to bring it to a vote. Instead ... crickets. No one seconded Doak’s motion, so the issue died there — voteless.

ICYMI: DOJ APPEALS TOBACCO WARNING LABEL RULING — PULSE admits it missed the Obama administration’s move Monday to appeal D.C. District Judge Richard Leon’s ruling last week that found mandatory, graphic tobacco warning labels are a violation of the First Amendment. But it was no surprise. The administration had already appealed a preliminary injunction Leon issued in November to prevent FDA from implementing the rules. The POLITICO Pro story on Leon’s most recent ruling: http://politico.pro/ztv5K0.

WE RAN OUT OF CLASS PUNS. IPAB is all the rage these days, but Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) is pressing HHS for more answers on the CLASS Act — specifically, whether the administration negotiated future legislative fixes before the ACA passed. Boustany, who authored the CLASS Act repeal bill, asked HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during a hearing last week about an administration report and journal article that he said suggests HHS negotiated legislative fixes with advocacy groups in early 2010. Sebelius responded: “I have no idea who was in the backroom with whom, and making deals, because that was certainly nobody from our department.” Boustany’s not buying it though, writing in a new letter to Sebelius that there’s a “yawning gap” between her testimony and a report from her department. The letter: http://politico.pro/Aaj3Ns

WHAT WE’RE READING, by Jennifer Haberkorn

The Wall Street Journal editorial page suggests that after Tuesday's meager wins for Romney, he "would be wise to come up with a better explanation for how his [health reform] views differ from Mr. Obama's. Voters want to hear him do what Mr. Santorum does and take Obamacare apart as policy and philosophy." http://on.wsj.com/AEnlwW

The Wall Street Journal opinion page cites a letter from Archbishop Timothy Dolan in which he "relates a remarkable meeting that he says the White House convened with the bishops to 'work out the wrinkles' of the mandate. Having accepted the invitation, the bishops asked if concrete policy changes like broadening the mandate's exemptions were 'all off the table.’ They were informed that they are.” http://on.wsj.com/zMEjj0

The White House is pushing back on the idea that the talks aren't going anywhere, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. http://bit.ly/yyXe3t

In New Mexico, several groups are expected to submit bids on Thursday to install the computer framework for the state's health insurance exchange, the Santa Fe New Mexican reports. http://bit.ly/wLQ0Wq

Mona Charen of the Washington Examiner also pushes back on the idea that Republicans are in a war on women. http://bit.ly/xOTFVz

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Authors:

About The Author

Brett Norman is a reporter at POLITICO, covering health care and pharma politics. He has worked as a science writer with the brilliant biomedical researchers at Rockefeller University in New York and started his career covering cops, courts and government for the Pensacola News Journal, where he was on a team of reporters twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service. He graduated from the University of Chicago and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and lives in Washington with his wife, the journalist Kate Dailey, and their toddler son. Brett is a 2015-2016 Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism fellow.